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Legislature Dismantling Services For Elderly, and Disabled

A program once hailed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan as “A dynamic framework on which we shall build a comprehensive system to assure that people with disabilities develop to their potential” is now under attack, some 42 years later by his successors, both Republican and Democrat.

The legislation Gov. Reagan was lauding is now known as the Lanterman Act, the Bible by which services to persons with developmental disabilities are made available. Those disabilities include autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and a host of other developmental delays.

A year ago, California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office [LAO], warned that the state was starting down the path toward decimation of our 42-year commitment to the developmentally disabled, some 250,000 Californians.

The cliff at the end of the path that the LAO office predicted is now in sight, not only for the disabled but for thousands of other Californians who receive In-Home Supportive Services [IHSS] including the elderly, the medically fragile and those with chronic illnesses.